


Incredibly Clever Friends

by homosociality



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fix-It, Multi, Post-Episode: s07e05 The Angels Take Manhattan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 13:34:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12772134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homosociality/pseuds/homosociality
Summary: In June of 1941, Amy corners Dr Edwin Bracewell in a dark alley. “Hey, Paisley Boy,” she says. “Remember me?”





	Incredibly Clever Friends

It only takes Amy a couple of months to remember where they can get their hands on technology from a civilization that rivalled the Time Lords’, and then two long years of waiting and one longer year of war to get there. They take a harrowing ocean-liner voyage across the Atlantic in July, Rory’s fingers clenched white on the railing while he waits for fate or time karma or Weeping Angels to prove that escaping a fixed point in time is futile, Amy spending most of the time bent over the deck after discovering that sea travel in 1938 is nothing like the smooth, slick ride of 26th-century cruises on the Sea of Tranquillity. They build a life for themselves in safe, quaint Oxford based on Rory’s memories of the Blitz, Amy single-handedly bullying her way onto the staff of the _Oxford Times_ and Rory dazzling enough physicians by treating inflammation with steroids to get his accreditation at long last, but that only lasts until the air raids actually begin. Inevitably, they run straight into the thick of the bombing. Rory spends long, loud nights hunched over the screaming injured and the quiet corpses. Amy gets a reputation for the ways she’ll sneak, flirt, and strong-arm her way into war rooms and disaster sites before sneaking, flirting, and strong-arming her way onto the front page. They almost die a few times, but that’s not new, and at least the entire rest of London is right there with them. Three years is the longest they’ve ever waited for the Doctor, but only just. And after an impossibly long wait, but before they know it, it’s 1941.

In June of 1941, Amy corners Dr Edwin Bracewell in a dark alley. “Hey, Paisley Boy,” she says. “Remember me?”

\--

Amy knows better than most that remembering is a tricky proposition. The universe has been rewired at least twice since she last saw Edwin Bracewell. It’s quite possible the Daleks never came to London in 1941 at all, or that she never did. She’s not a miniskirt-and-leather-jacket kind of girl anymore; her hair is curled and nylons drawn-on like every other woman in London, with little round lenses perched on her nose--not a good look for her, but apparently literally the only shape specs come in as of 1941. But recognition dawns on Bracewell’s face, along with a kind of amazed happiness. “Miss Pond!”

A relieved laugh bursts out of her. “Edwin! It is just _amazing_ to see you”--and there’s a kind of awkward but very heartfelt sort of android-hug, and wow, she’d never admit it to anyone, especially Rory, who seems to rely on her belief so much especially now, but it is _such_ a relief to see her incredible past in someone else’s face, proof that it happened in places beyond the stories she’s been recording. Once upon a time, Amy Pond talked an Oblivion Continuum into becoming human and saved the entire planet. “Keeping out of trouble? Found that girl?”

A shy smile appears on his lined face. “I--yes. Yes, in fact--it seems as though the Daleks modelled my memories off of the existing imprint of a recently deceased scientist, Dorabella, she’s, she’s very real--we’re, we’re taking it slow right now, with the war on, she’s a senior nurse up in Edinburgh, you know--Miss Pond, I’m afraid to realize that I did not _thank you_ the last time I saw you, and I am. Very thankful.”

In a hugely embarrassing moment, Amy feels tears pricking at her eyes. “Oh, that’s _great_ , Edwin. That’s wonderful. I’m so happy for you.”

“I owe it all to you, Miss Pond, and the Doctor, truly. If you hadn’t been there--”

“Oh, hush. You couldn’t have done it at all if you weren’t human to begin with.” Amy yanks herself back together and steps back with square shoulders. “But hold on to that gratitude. I have a favour to ask.”

\--

At this time of night, Churchill’s bunker is buzzing but not frenzied. Amy sips gritty war coffee at a long, low table, with Bracewell across from her and Rory stalwart warmth at her side. “There’s a time lock,” she explained. “He can’t come here, no matter how long we wait or how far we go. But I’m hoping--and this is where you come in--that we can go to him.”

Bracewell hesitates. “Miss Pond--”

“You _can_ ,” she says firmly. “I’ve seen what you’re capable of--all the engineering and ingenuity of the Daleks. And the Daleks can time jump.”

“Even--even if I _were_ to construct such a thing, I am _certain_ that I have no way to lock on to the Doctor’s current position. The TARDIS could be anywhere in time and space, you know that--”

“We’ll handle that bit,” Rory says, as reassuringly calm and faithful as ever. “We just need to escape this lifespan the Weeping Angels have trapped us in. We can take care of the rest.”

“But _how?_ ”

“We’ll think of something.” The dark bruises near-permanently worn under his eyes by late nights and injured civilians lighten as he smiles. “The Doctor always does.”

Bracewell still looks unconvinced. He’s opening his mouth to protest again when Amy reaches out and catches his hand. “We know,” she says. “We know it’s a risk. We’re just--not ready to give him up.”

The sound of him caving is nearly audible. Amy _always_ gets what she wants.

\--

When Amy introduced Rory as her husband to Bracewell, he saw the same flicker of surprise he’d gotten use to seeing in the eyes of those who’d known Amy and the Doctor while they’d been traveling alone. The sting of it has faded, mostly, with time and the gradual understanding that the Doctor has his own affection for him, and Amy her own kind of abiding belief and love. It helps that Bracewell immediately extends his hand and says, “You’re a very lucky man; when I met your wife, she saved the world.”

“Yeah, she does that. I’ve seen her save the universe.”

That’s about all the time they have before Amy swoops in and works her will upon hapless coffee-fetching secretaries, assorted soldiers, and a sentient piece of advanced technology. Rory does love to watch her work. Later, Bracewell poring over half-drawn schematics of something that looks vaguely like a pod bed, he asks Rory why he wants to go, clearly expecting him to have a different answer than the one Amy gave him.

“Do you know what it’s like to be in love?” Rory asks.

Bracewell flushes. Rory marvels at the concept of an android with a blood supply. “Well--early days yet. I find the roses and rainbows description remarkably accurate.”

“After a while, it sort of...expands. Stops being the only think you think of but fills up all the other parts of your brain and heart. You become capable of so much more than you thought you would be. I’ve loved for a long, long time. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make it right. To ease this pain for someone I love.”

“Amy’s a lucky girl, then, too.”

“It’s not Amy I’m talking about,” Rory says.

Bracewell works a little longer while Rory looks at drafting pencils moving across thin, cheap paper. Late nights at the mobile aid units have left him wired and unable to sleep at strange hours. Across him, Amy snores on an squashy couch tucked into an unobtrusive corner--classic, of course, the first lead they have on the Doctor, the first step to seeing him for the first time in years, and she’s refused to return home to sleep before she needs to head to the newsroom tomorrow. Amy would always rather wait herself into sleep.

“You know, I’m an android--Dalek tech,” Bracewell says contemplatively, reminiscing, “Amy--she taught me how to be human.”

“That’s okay. I used to be plastic before she got hold of me. It’s kind of her thing.”

The rest of the night passes in companionable silence. And then, the next three weeks.

\--

The jump-stage is ready on a cool-shading-to-cold Tuesday night. Bracewell frets, as he has since Amy first made her outlandish request--the wrong materials, the makeshift techniques necessitated by only having one engineer and two occasional clueless helpers, the substituting of banana candy for the crystal derivative drive. “Couldn’t source enough erbium,” Bracewell apologizes. Amy is barely listening to him. She’s staring at the jump-stage hungrily, at its sleek aluminium lines and the clean blue glow seeping from its vents and pores. She grips Rory’s hand tightly.

The jump is set to a straightforward 2,000 years into the future where time travel is abundant and cheap enough, but Earth is experiencing a retro revival so Amy and Rory can navigate more easily, and where they and the Doctor once spent a frenetic weekend attempting to stop a race of telepathic squid-things from triggering a premature expansion of the sun and destroying Earth in the process. Bracewell dithers, unwilling to make the call to send them off into the absolute unknown. Amy steals a glance at Rory for courage.

He’s looking at her, too. She sees an absolute trust that sends panic through her--what if this kills them, what if it kills _him_ , isn’t this good enough, a long life with Rory, isn’t this something she was on the verge of choosing just a few years ago, are they doing this, _really?_ \--and a longing which settles her, sings to her. He wants the stars as much as she does. Wants their madman and their box. And she’ll give them back to him.

They’re doing this.

Bracewell surveys them nervously and gives up trying to obliquely talk them out of it. With one last rush of motion, he runs a last few mechanical checks, links the jump-stage to the bunker’s generators, recalculates the coordinates set on his clunky little handheld control. “It’s the shielding I’m worried about,” he says, seemingly unable to keep himself from one last admonition. “Hardiest steel in the business, but the transit plans in my head use super-dense alloys; I’m not sure it’ll stand up to the time vortex for as long as it’ll take to get you there. And even if the shields hold up, the joints might--”

“Edwin,” Amy says, “fire her up.”

He shuts up obligingly. Amy steals one last look at Rory and remembers both of them holding onto a teleporter’s control, waiting for the Doctor in the burning near-wreck of the Dalek Asylum. Here they are again.

It’s his eyes she’s looking at when they jump.

\--

The shields hold up; in the end, it’s the rivets which fall apart.

\--

Amy crawls out of a smouldering wreck of half a jump-stage in the 62nd century, on a trash-strewn ridge overlooking a bright, manic city with a promisingly large number of populations wending through the streets. Rory wakes up bruised and with one eyebrow singed off in a smoky, gritty dive bar on the edge of the Sombrero Galaxy.

But they’re out. They’ll find each other.

And then, the Doctor.


End file.
